An example of such an article storage facility is disclosed in JP Publication of Application No. 2015-9953 (Patent Document 1). In the following description of this background art section, the names of the parts and the reference numerals used in Patent Document 1 are shown in brackets.
The article storage facility (automated warehouse 100) of Patent Document 1 includes a rail (travel rail 51) extending along a rail extending direction, a first storage rack (stocker 1A) and a second storage rack (stocker 1B) extending along the rail (travel rail 51) for storing a plurality of articles, first transport devices (stacker cranes 7A and 7B) which move along the rail (travel rail 51) to transfer articles to and from the first storage rack (stocker 1A), and second transport devices (stacker cranes 7A and 7B) which move along the rail (travel rail 51) to transfer articles to and from the second storage rack (stocker 1A).
In the article storage facility (automated warehouse 100) of Patent Document 1, the rail (travel rail 51) extends from the area in which the first storage rack (stocker 1A) is located through the area in which the second storage rack (stocker 1B) is located. When performing maintenance of a transport device (stacker crane 7A or 7B), and when a transport device malfunctions, the transport device (stacker crane 7A or 7B) that needs to be worked on is moved to one of the areas (retreating areas E1 and E2) defined outside of the first storage rack (stocker 1A) and the second storage rack (stocker 1B).
Incidentally, in the article storage facility (automated warehouse 100) of Patent Document 1, one rail (travel rail 51) functions as the travel path for both the first transport devices (stacker cranes 7A and 7B) and the second transport devices (stacker cranes 7A and 7B). Thus, vibrations that occur when one of the transport devices (stacker crane 7A or 7B) moves on a rail (travel rail 51) are easily transmitted to other transport device(s) (stacker cranes 7A and 7B) through the rail (travel rail 51). Therefore, problems may occur, such as, transport devices (stacker cranes 7A and 7B) becoming unable to support articles properly due to vibrations transmitted through the rail (travel rail 51).